This could be the most boring thread of all time by the way but I thought I'd give it a whirl LOL.

Reading other threads and seeing where certain posters live it got me to thinking about all the places which have influenced me by virtue of where my ancestors hailed from.
As a hobby I have researched my family tree (indeed still do) and I don't have to go too far back to find grandparents, great grandparents, etc, etc coming from every corner of the UK.
I have direct line descendants who were born at Barrow (obviously), Ulverston, Kendal, the Gorbals at Glasgow, Dundee, Llanfrechfa (Near Pontypool - Wales), Southwark, Newington, Lambeth - London, Sturminster Newton in Dorset, York (or somewhere on the outskirts which name escapes me), Bury, Bradford - the Manchester one fortunately LOL, Doncaster (or Mexborough to be precise), Sunderland, Newcastle, Sedgley, Bilston, Wolverhampton, Bootle - Liverpool, Everton, Widnes, Whitchurch - Hampshire, Crewe.
In addition I have traced direct lineage family living at Leeds, Sheffield, Wigan at different stages of their lives.
With my connections to Cumbria and Wales, Newcastle and Everton, Sturminster Newton and the Gorbals I could easily be classed as a sheep bothering, car thieving, hill-billy hard-case. Fortunately (I hope) I am none of these but the list shows just how diverse my roots are and I guess the vast majority of people on here would have similar lineage.
Although I am Barrow RFC through and through I could probably put forward an argument for being a supporter of most teams with the exception of the Catalans.

My father's family hail from the Black Country and my mother's family (both sides) are originally from Wales.

I assume both lots were miners and migrated north for better conditions or pay or something like that. Based on what life was like for miners in Derbyshire in the late 19th century I do wonder how bad it must have been where they were.

My paternal grandfather hails from the highlands of Scotland, my mothers side come from east London and Wolverhampton. Both sets of grandparents settled in Gloucestershire after being stationed there following WWII.

Although I'm leaving the line were a Taylor married a Smith until I've exhausted all the others!

But got back to the 1600's with my Grandmas and reckon I can get back to the 1450's via one of my wifes lines, but I've not looked to closely at that in order to validate it and it was only because it was a well trodden path so all the leg work has been done.

Both sets of my grandparents always claimed to be born and bred Wiganers but having only just scratched the surface I’m finding, actually they weren’t and lots of family links in Lincolnshire, Wales, Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Cheshire. Was surprised how far and wide my maternal Grandfathers ancestors were willing to cast their nets to find a suitable lady to marry!

On a sober note, found my maternal great grandfather had 6 brothers, all of whom died in the First World War, leading to a search for him to be returned to a desk job in the UK (so the story goes, not found out what he did yet) for the rest of the war. Regardless, he was the only one of his brothers to survive. When you see it layed out in a tree and everything that went on from him returning home really drives home what a terrible impact on familes the wars had.

On a lighter note, one thing I’ve found thats and alternative and fun way of looking at all the data your collecting is to export it into a text file then drop it into Wordle and the more recurrences of a word the bigger it displays, if you keep refreshing the image you’ll get to one that looks decent! Helped me pick out a couple of trends I’d missed.

Although I'm leaving the line were a Taylor married a Smith until I've exhausted all the others!

But got back to the 1600's with my Grandmas and reckon I can get back to the 1450's via one of my wifes lines, but I've not looked to closely at that in order to validate it and it was only because it was a well trodden path so all the leg work has been done.

Both sets of my grandparents always claimed to be born and bred Wiganers but having only just scratched the surface I’m finding, actually they weren’t and lots of family links in Lincolnshire, Wales, Leicestershire, Derbyshire and Cheshire. Was surprised how far and wide my maternal Grandfathers ancestors were willing to cast their nets to find a suitable lady to marry!

On a sober note, found my maternal great grandfather had 6 brothers, all of whom died in the First World War, leading to a search for him to be returned to a desk job in the UK (so the story goes, not found out what he did yet) for the rest of the war. Regardless, he was the only one of his brothers to survive. When you see it layed out in a tree and everything that went on from him returning home really drives home what a terrible impact on familes the wars had.

On a lighter note, one thing I’ve found thats and alternative and fun way of looking at all the data your collecting is to export it into a text file then drop it into Wordle and the more recurrences of a word the bigger it displays, if you keep refreshing the image you’ll get to one that looks decent! Helped me pick out a couple of trends I’d missed.

Its a fascinating subject for sure.

Out of interest it was the First world war which sparked my interest in finding out more about my roots. My grandson was doing a project at school about it so I dug out my Gt Grandfathers War medals to show him (a full set plus the widow's penny death plaque). Matthew asked me who he was and I had to admit I knew nothing about him except that he was allegedly a true cockney born and bred.I felt ashamed that I didn't know more about him so set about having a look and got hooked on the whole ancestry thing. I discovered my great grandfather was killed in France in the first month of the war - he had previously fought in the Boer War!

Given your nominated username, there is an unfortunate irony about having relatives / antecedents from Llanfrechfa. The village is primarily recognised in South Wales as the home of Llanfrechfa Grange, a large mental hospital.

My father's family hail from the Black Country and my mother's family (both sides) are originally from Wales.

I assume both lots were miners and migrated north for better conditions or pay or something like that. Based on what life was like for miners in Derbyshire in the late 19th century I do wonder how bad it must have been where they were.

Many (most?) of the Mine-owners in Gwent came from Staffordshire and the boom industry attracted immigrant workers from all over Britain. In Blaenavon, at one time men were living in caves because there was a severe housing shortage. One set of my maternal great grandparents came from West Wales (and could not speak English on arrival); one set of my father's family originally came from Cornwall (Cornishmen had a mining tradition and experience that was highly valued).

Perhaps your Welsh ancestors were valued offered roles at one of the mine-owners' other mines either as a promotion opportunity or when their Welsh mine got worked out.

I would guess that at least a dozen of my extended family moved to England during the depression years of the 1920's.

Interesting point about the workers living in caves there. I know many navvies when building the railways or canals sometimes had to dig holes in the hillside for somewhere to sleep. I wonder if things like this is where we get the term 'staying in digs' from.

Given your nominated username, there is an unfortunate irony about having relatives / antecedents from Llanfrechfa. The village is primarily recognised in South Wales as the home of Llanfrechfa Grange, a large mental hospital.

Love it Woldford6 - I honestly didn't know that. The name of my ancestor (graet grandmother) who was born there was Ridout (her mother died there) and they are from my mam's side so definitely not Nutters in any sense of the word LOL.

Believe it or not the surname Nutter is very common in certain parts of England, particularly the north but all mine seem to come from London (and one section have links to the Richardson brothers (I have a photo of them with my grandad on it!!).

Of all the lines I am trying to trace the Nutter line is the hardest and when i started I thought it would be a piece of the proverbial.

Dad's side moved around a lot, especially his parents who were active in the Salvation Army, so got posted somewhere new ever 3-4 years. Traced back far enough, it appears that there are long-standing roots of the family in Wantage (Oxfordshire).

Mum's side is Welsh, going back several centuries. One ancestor was one of the first photographers in Britain, so we have loads of old pictures of people and places, mainly from the Cardigan area.

Between the optimist & the pessimist
The difference is quite droll:
The optimist sees the doughnut,
The pessimist sees the hole.

I've done 1/4 of my grandparents. My surname is Horsfield, which is most definitely a northern name. My paternal grandfather was born and raised in Elephant & Castle, south London and all of his ancestors were from that area going back to the early 19th Century where we found one who had moved down to London from Yorkshire. He opened a hardware shop and ended up owning a few of them. God knows what happened to the money because no-one in my family ever had any. Whenever people complained about the British Empire stealing the world's resources my granddad would point out that he spent his childhood running around south London with no shoes on his feet.

Haven't done my grandmother yet, although it may well be a similar story. She was born in The Borough, again in south London, and as far as we know her parents, etc were from the same area.

Over on my mum's side my grandmother is quite straight forward. She was born in Rathdrum, County Wicklow to a long line of farm labourersand moved to England when she was in her teens. Her whole family had moved over in dribs and drabs over the preceding years and they all settled in Shepherd's Bush, west London.

My granddad is very complicated. His father was a Russian-Jew, kicked out during the pogroms of the late 19th Century and arriving in London as a baby. They stayed in Spitalfields for a year or two before moving to Paddington where they settled. He grew up and married an Anglo-French Catholic and had lots of kids, the eldest being my granddad. I haven't even looked at this one yet because I have no idea where to start. None of us knows where in Russia they came from, or even what part of eastern Europe it might be now, and I can't believe that there are any reliable records in that part of the world listing people who were expelled, etc. I will look into it but it won't be easy, and may even be impossible.

My mum is actually working on a little album at the minute, listing her parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc and some anecdotes about them. They're all long gone now so it'll be nice to have something to bring it all together.

"Just as we had been Cathars, we were treizistes, men apart."
Jean Roque, Calendrier-revue du Racing-Club Albigeois, 1958-1959

Two of my grandparents were illegitimate, father unknown so I could be a 1/4 anything.

But what is known of my ancestry is that I'm English all the way back or so it would seem.

My father's family are North Eastern with some relatives in Cumbria and the far North Riding of Yorkshire. Only interesting bit was that I had a Bristolian ancestor and someone with the surname Viipond that was associated with Cumbrian hill farmers but seems to be of French Hugenot origin. I had always been told that my great-great-grandfather had been from Orkney but it turns out that he was from South Shields.

My mother's family are from East London / Essex / Kent / Suffolk. Only interesting bit is that one ancestor was called "Abraham Green" which may have been a Jewish name but then again is probably just an Anglo-Saxon.

Two of my grandparents were illegitimate, father unknown so I could be a 1/4 anything.

But what is known of my ancestry is that I'm English all the way back or so it would seem.

My father's family are North Eastern with some relatives in Cumbria and the far North Riding of Yorkshire. Only interesting bit was that I had a Bristolian ancestor and someone with the surname Viipond that was associated with Cumbrian hill farmers but seems to be of French Hugenot origin.

A John Vipond owned Lower Varteg Colliery, in my home village. He came to the valley from Staffordshire.

Grandfather's grandfather was an Irish Catholic, he married an Irish Protestant and they moved to London. That bit of the family was in Southall until recently. My nan on my mum's side's family were in Hendon for a time but also in and around what is now covered by Heathrow airport. They're also connected to Scotland (in particular Sutherland) in ways that I don't really follow.

My surname is Devonian and a fair bit of the 'dim and distant' family are still there - other than that my dad's father's family moved to Newport in South Wales, where he was born. There are outliers in Swansea and Milford Haven as well. Dad's mum's family are from Oldham and moved down to Gwent looking for work in the immediate post-war years.

My sister was born in Pontypool and now lives in Worcestershire and thinks of herself and her family as English. I was born in Otley and lived in various parts of Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cumbria and Northants growing up before spending some time in Ceredigion and Glamorgan. A few abodes in London and I'm now in Britain's Most Desirable Village . Via Chesham.

My sister was born in Pontypool and now lives in Worcestershire and thinks of herself and her family as English. I was born in Otley and lived in various parts of Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cumbria and Northants growing up before spending some time in Ceredigion and Glamorgan. A few abodes in London and I'm now in Britain's Most Desirable Village ™. Via Chesham.